


Things that go bump in the night

by Adeline_Hatter



Series: The Nonagon Institute [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - The Magnus Archives Fusion, Character Death, Dark fic, Drowning, F/F, Ghosts, Horror, Multi, Psychological Horror, Strangulation, Supernatural Elements, TMA Canon typical trigger warnings apply, The WLW are safe though I swear on my fucking life, the magnus archives au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29380095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adeline_Hatter/pseuds/Adeline_Hatter
Summary: Getting a promotion is what she wanted, just out of the department, not into the chair of the Head Archivist because the last one went and got himself murdered by an unseen force.Yeah, this year was certainly off to a great start.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Canon typical pairings
Series: The Nonagon Institute [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158215
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Things that go bump in the night

**Author's Note:**

> MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING 
> 
> I can't possibly catch every single one, so I need to put it out there that this fic deals with typical horror elements amongst a sea of not so typical ones, this is a DARK FIC. 
> 
> So please, heed the tags and take caution for your mental health. 
> 
> Now, with that out the way... Let's us begin.

_Original Statement taken on the 12th of October, 2018 by Caleb Widogast for Vex’ahilia De Rolo regarding her brother’s death and supposed haunting._

**_Statement Begins_ **

* * *

_“Would you like anything to drink? We have coffee, tea, sparkling water?”_

_“If it were later in the day I would ask you for something stronger- *laugh* -but it isn’t, but no, just a glass of plain water will do. Thank you.”_

_“I see, I’ll be back in a moment, feel free to start, some find it easier to give a statement when I’m not present.”_

_“Okay.”  
  
SFX: Door shutting  
  
“He said to start… But how do I start? Do I start with the first or the last?”_

_SFX: Nails tapping on a table._

_“I suppose with the first incident… My brother Vax and I have always been close, we’re twins you see and nothing quite breaks that bond you know? At least I thought so…_

_You see, Vax has always seen things that I never really caught other than in the corner of my eye, he would stare out of windows and laugh at the air like he’d just heard the greatest joke he would ever hear in his life and it had been like that since we were children._

_Until a year or so ago, we’d gone swimming in the Ashari river, our whole friend group went and when we were packing up to go we couldn’t find him, we spent an hour walking up and down the bank of the river looking for any sign of him and when I was starting to panic he appeared out of the river itself._

_It was just myself, my now husband but then boyfriend and my brother’s girlfriend at that spot of the river’s edge, but Vax just walked out and acted like nothing was wrong._

_He choked up water a moment later and I demanded we go to the hospital immediately but he protested and said that if I was worried, then Pike- she’s a Doctor -could look him over to check that he was okay._

_Keyleth- Vax’s girlfriend -backed me up about the hospital, we both knew how stubborn he was when it came to his own wellbeing, so eventually we both wore him down to at least go to a walk in centre._

_Mostly what I remember about that day at the river was the look in his eyes, my brother has always suffered from mental illness so I could recognise when he wasn’t feeling his best but the look in his eyes was unlike I’d seen before._

_Swirling patterns, blacker then our usual dark brown, there was no light in them even when he looked at Keyleth._

_Percy- my Husband -went and told the others whilst we got Vax into the car and to the check in centre._

_Needless to say, no one found anything wrong with him, even Pike who looked him over three different times throughout the next few days, she lives just down the street from him._

_I was ready to wave it off honestly, then something like it happened again._

_It was a month after this, Vax’s apartment caught on fire in the middle of the night and I only found out about it because Pike called me in the middle of the night, panicking into the phone ‘Vax’s apartment is on fire, it’s almost nothing but ash- Vex I don’t think he made it, no one’s seen him.’_

_Waking Percy, I was just getting out of bed when a knock came to the door, I’m Vax’s next of kin and you have to understand the pure dread that came with the sound, Percy said he would get it and pressed a kiss to my forehead before telling me to finish getting dressed._

_I was just pulling my hair behind me when he came back with the brightest smile on his face, then opened the door to reveal Vax, stood there, utterly fine, but something felt… Off about him, just like that day at the river, his eyes were pitch black but his smile was the same._

_Same Vax, same smile and same weariness that usually followed him, so I asked him if he knew what had happened to his apartment._

_He said he did, he’d noticed it starting so he’d gotten out but… My brother can lie, make no mistake we’re both capable of it but I_ knew _he was lying, you have to understand it’s just a sense I have about it all._

_But still he seemed fine, he said he was fine… He smelt like smoke, you have to understand- it was like I knew him but didn’t at the same time._

_We set him up on the sofa, he just wanted to sleep he said and I made sure he was comfortable but I… couldn’t sleep, not really, not again, this was the second time it felt like I was close to losing a part of myself._

_I spent the rest of the night sat on Percy’s reading armchair, it’s plush velvet and quite comfortable- I don’t know why I’m telling you this, any of this really._

_Vax was okay, he woke the next morning like nothing had happened before, he ate pancakes and his eyes were_ normal _again and for a moment I relaxed._

_But, when I cleared the sofa of the blankets we’d leant him and the pillow, it was covered in dust and ash, like something had degraded over night in the same spot as he had been sleeping._

_I looked at him then, at the breakfast table, making small talk with Percy and I remember finally thinking that the being sat there may not be my brother at all._

_Which was ridiculous, even now it seems ridiculous because things like this just aren’t… Real-“_

_SFX: Door opening_

_“Sorry, am I interrupting? I brought your water.”_

_“Oh, no, no I was just in mid sentence, the water would be fantastic thank you.”_

_SFX: A glass being placed on a table._

_“Would you like to continue?”_

_“…I think so, I’m almost done, though admittedly I managed to get most of the story out before you walked in, I just have…”_

_“It’s alright, you can take your time, things like this are never easy.”_

_“You sound like you’ve experience in grief Mr Widogast.”_

_“Ja, that would be… an understatement, Mrs De Rolo, please, continue we’re talking about you and your brother today after all.”_

_“Yes, of course… Where was I…”_

_“If you need a moment, please take it.”_

_“No, I’m ready, it was like I was looking at my brother but whatever he was… Wasn’t my brother? It looked like him, talked like him, smiled like him, carried the same weary expression as my brother but whatever it was… It wasn’t_ him.”

_“I see.”_

_“Do you? Have you ever known someone your entire life but not been able to pinpoint what was wrong? Because that’s how it felt, it felt like I was looking at something impossible but… True at the same time, my brother had been there moments ago and now he was… Just wrong.”_

_“I can’t say I have, no.”_

_“Then… I’m getting off track, because what happened the next time… The third time when he really… died was stranger.”  
  
“How so?”_

_“We were out at a club, the eight of us, myself, my husband, Keyleth, Pike, Grog, Scanlan, Tary… The names are probably meaningless to you but they are all my friends you see and they were Vax’s too, so we went out to this club, you know the Feywild over on the west side of the city? Well, we were all there and Vax was dancing with Keyleth, trying to get her to laugh when this weird guy crept up behind him.”_

_“Weird guy?”_

_“That’s how I can think to describe him in this moment, see he seemed to be flickering as he moved, like he didn’t quite… Exist in this world? Am I saying that right?”_

_“As well as anyone can.”_

_“Okay, well, he flickered and got closer to Vax, I think Keyleth saw him as well in that moment because her mouth opened to say something but Vax couldn’t hear her over the music and the man’s hands went around his throat and… Squeezed.”_

_“You saw him strangling your brother?”  
  
“Yes, it was like it was…”_

_“Take your time.”  
  
SFX: Water being drunk, large gulps._

_“Nothing, like my brother wasn’t even there and this man was just… Clapping his hands together, he had red hair… A different shade from yours, brighter, curlier and he… I remember he flickered once more and then smiled at… Well, he smiled at_ me.”

_“You?”_

_“Yes… Yes, I’m quite sure it was me, he smiled as my brother’s…”_

_“As…?”_

_“Well, well one moment he was there and the next he wasn’t and I…”_

_“Mrs De Rolo?”_

_“….He was gone, my brother and I kept waiting for him to stand up, waiting for him to laugh and look up at Keyleth from the floor, to read his lips as he told her he was okay but he didn’t…”_

_“Get up?”_

_“He was dead, for real and… All that I could see as the club erupted into chaos was red, but that may have been the lights as the man flickered out of existence and was replaced by a dark shadow… It seemed to take him.”_

_“The flickering man?”_

_“My brother.”_

**_Statement Ends_ **

* * *

**Supplemental -**

_This statement was sat on Mr Widogast's desk when I arrived, playing it and listening to it through... I don't think Mollymauk was forthright about what this devision deals with and I am curious as to how to continue._

_Yasha brought me files a moment ago after I asked, Mrs De Rolo did return later that year to give another statement regarding her brother but we can't find it yet, it is an interesting theory though._

_A man who can die more than once..._

    * _Beauregard Lionett, Head Archivist at The Nonagon Institute._




End file.
